After eating and drinking, an endless exhaustion once again assaulted Li Teng.
His body fell and he deeply fell asleep.
Even if the helicopter were to take him through a trial by fire, no one could stop him from having a good sleep at this moment.
At least, it was warm here.
And he was neither thirsty nor hungry anymore.
...
Li Teng did not know how long he had slept.
Possibly a few hours?
Maybe even longer.
When he woke up again, the cabin door of the helicopter was open.
Outside… was flat ground.
Having eaten bread and cookies, and drunk some beverages, he regained some strength.
Li Teng crawled out of the helicopter's cabin and stood on the flat ground below.
Cement surface.
After putting Li Teng down, the helicopter immediately flew up into the sky and left.
After walking a few steps on the flat ground, Li Teng doubted whether he was dreaming.
His feet felt light, as if walking in an illusory realm.
Had he finally returned to the ground?
The question was, where was this?
It wasn't snowing here, there was no rain, the temperature was mild, about twenty degrees or so, and it felt very comfortable.
After looking around, Li Teng quickly affirmed one thing.
This place was either by the sea or on an island.
The spot where he was standing was the helicopter's helipad, behind him was a beach and the sea, and in front of him was a building.
Undoubtedly, he had to first enter that building to figure out where he had been brought.
Although Li Teng was only wearing a set of smelly pajamas and hadn't brushed his teeth or washed his face for several days, now was not the time to care about appearances.
Go have a look.
If he could find someone, everything would probably become clear.
...
"Is anyone there?"
Li Teng arrived at the street and shouted a few times toward the empty roadway.
No one responded.
Next to the entrance of the street was a restaurant.
The sign only had the word "Restaurant" written on it.
Although there was no money in the pockets of his pajamas, seeing the restaurant, Li Teng still walked in.
The bread and cookies he had eaten on the helicopter had long been digested by his hungry stomach.
He was still very hungry.
There was a clock hanging on the wall of the restaurant, showing the time as 10:03 AM.
If the time was correct, Li Teng estimated that the helicopter might have flown around three or four hours.
It could also have been shorter.
Next to the clock was an LCD screen.
The screen displayed a countdown, about one hour and fifty-seven minutes.
It seemed this countdown would end at exactly noon.
"What's the countdown for? Is it the restaurant's opening time?"
"Isn't noon a bit too late to start serving?"
"It definitely can't be the time the restaurant closes, right?"
The entire restaurant was empty.
At least after looking around for a while, Li Teng didn't see a single person.
"Is anyone there?"
"Can I place an order?"
Although Li Teng was just wearing pajamas and had no money on him, under the coercion of hunger, he still braved it out, hoping to get a meal on credit.
No one responded.
Li Teng looked around the restaurant carefully again.
The restaurant had a service counter, next to which there was a machine.
Could this be an automated food vending machine?
Li Teng walked over.
Sure enough, it was an automatic food vending machine.
The display showed a menu.
There were quite a variety of food options on the menu.
There were steamed buns, stuffed buns, porridge, rice, various types of noodles, fried dough, marinated eggs, and other homestyle breakfasts.
You could also order dishes with rice, including home-style stir-fries, roast chicken, roast duck, pig's trotters, braised pork, lobster, hairy crab, and even various exotic delicacies from the mountains and seas.
Looking at these, Li Teng's mouth watered, and his stomach embarrassingly grumbled.
These foods were not purchased with money.
Rather, you needed a membership card, which used points on the card for transactions.
The machine in front of him could issue a membership card.
After facial recognition, the machine automatically filled out Li Teng's name.
But that wasn't very surprising; WeChat and Alipay had this feature for a while now, so perhaps the restaurant was networked with those systems.
Now was not the time to think about these things.
The membership card was a blank, white card with no text on it.
Once the membership card was issued, Li Teng could exchange food for points from his membership account.
Unfortunately, Li Teng's membership account had no points at all.
He didn't know how these points were acquired.
By exchanging cash?
After some investigation, Li Teng discovered that his membership account had a function similar to "Huabei."
He could advance 100 points to his account.
Although very hungry and tempted to devour a feast of roast chicken and duck, Li Teng ultimately resisted.
The more tempting the food, the more points it cost.
And his stomach, having been starving for several days, wasn't suited for overly greasy foods at the moment.
In the end, Li Teng advanced only five points.
With these five points, he redeemed a bowl of hot dry noodles, a stuffed bun, a bowl of porridge, three steamed buns, and a small plate of pickles.
After confirming the order, the vending machine's conveyer belt delivered the food.
Li Teng tried to peek into the machine through the serving window, but it was pitch-dark inside, and he couldn't see anything.
Although he couldn't discern where the food came from, it was indeed steaming hot and smelled normal.
Even just these noodles, steamed buns, and other simple items were a supreme delicacy to Li Teng at this moment.
Eating steamed buns with pickles was a sublime pleasure.
All the food went down his stomach.
He ate until he was full.
Li Teng still wanted to eat, but he restrained himself.
Overeating now could destroy his severely damaged and fragile stomach and further weaken his body.
It was better to take it easy.
"Thank you for the food. I'll definitely find a way to pay you back," Li Teng shouted a few times toward the inside of the restaurant.
Although it was possible that no one heard him, it was important to express his adherence to integrity.
After eating and drinking his fill, Li Teng returned to the street.
Next to the restaurant was a clothing store.
Beside the clothing store was a bathing center.
Seeing his smelly and dirty pajamas which he hadn't changed in several days, Li Teng quickly ducked into the clothing store.
Like the restaurant, the clothing store also lacked clerks and only had an automatic vending machine.
Like in the restaurant, there was a clock and a liquid crystal display countdown on the wall of the clothing store.
It seemed something big was going to happen at twelve noon?
What could it be?
Better buy clothes first.
The most important items to buy were a pair of socks and shoes.
During his time on top of the stone pillar, his feet were always bare.
There were both cheap and expensive clothes in the clothing store.
With not many points in his account, Li Teng chose the cheapest outfit, a promotional set, including clothes, trousers, shoes, and socks, which cost only twelve points in total.
Counting the points for the meal just eaten, Li Teng had now accrued a debt of seventeen points.
After selecting his clothes and footwear, Li Teng didn't immediately change into them but instead entered the adjacent bathing center.